Skylanders: Age of Ruin
by Clumsy Reaper
Summary: I decided to try something new. Hope it's worth it. Now then, actual description; there comes a time when all hope is lost and everything begins to fall apart, when the end is within reach and the world begins to die. This time has come to Skylands, Can the Skylanders survive this Age of Ruin?
1. 1

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter one: Devastation

* * *

Look...I have no idea for the timeline for this...a lot of things are going to happen that are going to throw the cannon for a massive loop. I'd put it after the series has ended but, it doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon. So, any games that have released will be counted as 'in the past' for this, which will also include games that have yet to even be announced, but as nobody knows anything about those...also, I have yet to play Super chargers so I don't know much about that either...so...just bare with me, okay? This is going to be worth it...or at least I hope it will be...well, here goes nothing

* * *

The evil plans, the armies of darkness, the megolamaniacal scheming, everything was over. It was an age where good reined, at long last. Which is not to say it was a time of absolute peace. Heroes were still needed: there were still war and problems with the world (monsters were still a problem, as they were techincally residents of Skylanders, no matter how rowdy and mencaing). But, it was still an age of good, a time when Skylands as a whole was no longer threatened.

None the less the mighty Skylanders, heroes of Skylands for untold centuries, grew in number like never before. For any being with a single drop of heroism in them was welcomed and trained. Things were going well.

Then the Skyquakes started. They weren't at all like earthquakes, but they weren't like anything anyone had ever experienced. In fact, nobody knew what they even were; the sky turned red and thick choking smog filled the air, making it difficult to breathe and all but impossible to see. And then...entire islands, entire achipelegoes sometimes, blew apart; leaving nothing but dust, debris, and maybe, just MAYBE, if they were lucky, a survivor or two. Even the elemental energies flowing through the places seemed drained away.

Needless to say, the Skylanders had their hands full with these unusual disasters. Even the newest of recruits were kept busy with all the work coming in. One of these newbies felt as though he may have actually figured out something about these catastrophies and was rushing to tell the oddly small number of beings that were counted as higher ups in and for the Skylanders what he had discovered. However, these higher ups were in an intense meeting at the time.

«^»«^»«^»

"At this rate, there'll be nothing left before long..." Mags said, after making calculations, hanging her head slightly, "looks like this is curtains for Skylands

"Adventuring rule number one: Skylands is always bigger than you think it is," Wash Buckler retorted, "besides, these things can't go on forever."

"Maybe not, but the amount of time they continue doesn't matter," Buzz muttered "they're draining away Skylands' life force: they leave whole areas of sky barren of all elemental energy, Light and Dark included. Even if they stop with most od Skylands still in tact, it may wind up simply dying..."

"We can't give up hope." Spyro said, "there has to be some way to make things right, to stop these Skyquakes."

"That's the spirit!" Tree Rex said, "it can't be that hard to find an answer."

Suddenly voices echoed from outside. One seemed rushed and nervous, while another was obvious Crusher, who'd been posted to keep other Skylanders from interupting the meeting.

"you have to let me in! I have something to tell them!" Said the first voice

"I'm under order than nobody gets in," Crusher growled out in his gravely voice.

"Please this important!" the first voice screamed.

Crusher was anout to reply when Spyro shouted through the door.

"Bring him on in, Crush!" Spyro said

Crusher opened the door and in ushered in a nervous looking Elf with a bionic eye who was carrying several rolled up peices of paper.

"Ah, Critz." Spyro said, recognising the recruit, "what's up?"

"Spyro, everyone else!" Critz said, quickly setting his papers down and spreading them out, they were several charts, maps and other information, "the Skyquakes...I figured something out...it's not good..."

He received a few question looks and, as he couldn't get past his own stammering, he began to point and gesture to his charts. Spyro was the first to make a realization.

"The Skyquakes are happening in a pattern..." He said.

" I-it's worse than th-th-that," Critz said, pulling out a large, old looking book to add more info to what he'd shown them. But before he could show it to the others, the sky outside the meeting room turned blood red

The entire resisdence of the Skylanders academy all froze, suddenly horrified.

"No... Not here..." Spyro stared open-mouthed. Then he made to call out to the others to evacuate. But it was too late, the smog had already set in and a terrible grinding, crunching noise filled the air.

Then, like all the others that had felt a Skyquake, the island exploded like a dying star.

When he came to, Spyro found himself in the medbay of a ship. He immediatly recognised it as Flynn's; not the Dreadyacht, but a new, far larger, currently unamed ship that had been built through need as the Skylanders' numbers swelled insanely. When he tried to get up he found he could barely move. He looked around and only saw two more people in the room. Taking up several beds on the far side of the room was Tree Rex, who looked was unconscious and with good reason: he had massive gaping wounds and was slowly but surely rehealing himself, which took ludicrous amount of stamina from him. The other person in the room, propped weakly in a chai next to Spyro, was Critz. He was weakly clutching the strange book he had pulled out during the meeting, but when he saw Spyro was awake, he set it next to him.

"The book...has...answers" he breathed out, each word clearly causing him pain, "sorry that...I didn't...find...it...soo...ner..." Suddenly he collapsed and the chair fell back. Spyro tried to help, but the most he could manage was to very, very shakily get to his feet his feet and hobble just an inch or so closer to Critz before collapsing, on the verge of blacking out. Before he lost consciouness he noticed the cloth wrapped around Crtiz's chest, with a large bloodstain right over the hear.

And then he knew no more for some time

* * *

So yeah. Chapter one of the new series. I gave myself a bit of room to add in a few OCs, and I'd say I did pretty well for the first chapter for once.

 **WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?**

I'm trying something new. Trust me, it's not going to stay serious the whole time. It'll have my usual weird humor, and maybe even other forms of happy things. Just...not yet.

 **But...but...**

Yeah, I know. It's different. But hey, Different is Good.

Belak Out


	2. The Final Begining

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 2: The Final Begining

Spyro woke up again with a start. His vision was blurry but he could tell was still on Flynn's ship, but the room was empty this time. He tried to get up, and thankfully found that he had more energy that before, but one of his front legs still hurt when he put weght on it. He tried to lift himself a little ways into the air and almost managed to do so before he fell back down, pain shooting through him. He looked over and noticed his right wing was bent at an unnatural angle.

He sighed and was about to begin limping to the door when he remembered something and turn around as quick as he could and searched the area he had woken up. He relieved picked up the book Critz had given him, looked at it confused for a moment, then tucked it under is hurt leg. Thankfully, this didn't hurt. He was about to begin limping again when he heard a voice.

"Good to see you on your feet," Tree Rex said from the doorway, "think you can make it above decks?"

"Should be able to..." Spyro answered, slightly unsure, "why?"

But the giant just lowered his head his head slowly, "you'll see."

With Tree Rex helping now and again, Spyro made his way to the main deck of the ship and was met with a very sad, oddly small group of Skylanders. Spy Rise, Pop Fizz, Chill, Rattle Shake, Sealth Elf and Donkey Kong all stood huddled around and seeming a little worse for the wear, though they all looked much better than Spyro felt. Then they noticed the dragon and genuinely cheered up a bit.

"Spyro, you're okay!" Pop Fizz cheered.

"Yeah...where's everyone else?" The purple dragon asked, genuinely confused.

Pop Fizz sat down and took a drink of soda, looking disapointed with himself.

"We're all that made it out of the blast, Spyro," Spy Rise explained, "and even then, most of us only made it to the ship because of Pop Fizz. Tell 'em Pop."

"I had a bad feeling in my gut, so I told Flyn to ready his ship, just in case." Pop Fizz began, "I bribed him with soda. Anyway, when the Sky turned red I knew right away what was going down so I chugged some berserk potion and I grabbed Chill and Rattle Shake, and DK saw what I was doing, figured it out, and brought Stealth and Spy Rise. We dropped them and a few non-skylanders we'd picked up along the way, onto the ship. We were about to go back to get more when...boom. Luckily, Flynn had already pulled away far enough so we weren't in the direct blast, but we still got knocked all over the place...Before the ship had even restabilized I drank as much berserk poition as I could and leapt across what was left of the island, looking for survivors. That's how I found you and Tree Rex and...Critz...I had to wait for the ship to catch up with me because I couldn't carry Tree Rex and didn't want to leave anyone behind..." The gremlin suddenly curled up in a fetal position, crying slightly, "I'm sorry...I couldn't save everyone, I couldn't even keep the ones I did save alive...I don't deserve to be a hero..."

Spyro was about to console him, when suddenly Chill put a hand on ghe gremlin's shoulder.

"Do not worry," she said to him, "you did good, Fizz."

It was fairly well known that for some reason, Chill had had some kind of general dislike for Pop Fizz for a long time, so those few words were among the nicest things she ever said to him. At the sound of them, he stopped crying and and uncurled himself slightly, a little chered up but more confused than anything.

"But still, we're all that'ss left." said Rattle Shake, "Eight Skylanders. Two magic, three life, a water, a tech, and an undead."

"At least we have a Super Charger, and Giant, and two Swap Force members," said Stealth Elf.

"We might have more than that." Buzz's voice came from the helm of the ship, he came down as quickly as he was able, a slight smile on his face, "there were two groups of Skylanders that were out on minor missions when the quake hit: four on one team, three on the other. If our luck holds out, we might be able to find them."

"Well, that's good news," Spyro nodded, "that'll bring us to fifteen."

"That may not sound like much, but me and the other Giants beat the Arkeyans with less," Tree Rex said, "and besides, it's not like we're actually up against anything. Only bad thing happening is those damned Skyquakes."

At those words, Suddenly somthing sturck in Spyro's mind. He quickly pull Critz's book out from under his arm.

"Crits said that this book would have answers. And judging from context, he meant about the Skyquakes," the dragon said, examining the cover. It had the title written in fancy golden lettering, and the leather cover looked old but it had clearly been taken care of fantastically. He read the title aloud in a slight confusion, "Before the Elements..."

"But...nothing existed before the Elements, not in Skylands anyway," Pop Fizz puzzled, suddenly interested, "that's how the legends go anyway: the first appearance of the elements, the Alpha Elementals, made Skylands and everything in it..."

"Legends can change..." Tree Rex said, "maybe this one did too..."

"Only one way to find out," Spyro said, and opened the heavy cover.

* * *

 **So...you actually had the guts to fucking kill HUNDREDS OF CHARACERS!?**

After I started the last chapter, there was no turning back...and for those of you who are upset with me for that, I have two things to say: one being that it's just a story written by a moron, so don't worry. And the other being that maybe they aren't exactly gone for good.

 **...the fuck is that supposed to mean?**

That I have actually good plans and also am devious.

 **Alright...but why'd you end the chapter when they opened the book?**

Because the next chapter will be what they read. Might be a doozy...

 **...judging by this, it might not. You run out of ideas fast.**

Yeah... Anyway.

Belak Out


	3. Before the Elements

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 3: Before the Elements

The strange book read thusly:

«^»«^»«^»

Many think that this world was always as it was, always the magnificent and mysterious Skylands, brimming with the energy of the elements. They are wrong. I know the truth, and am recording it in hopes the real history shall never be lost

Before Skylands, there was another land. It was a cruel world ruled by none. But this world was not the same as wonderful Skylands: This world was whole, and it sat far below the clouds. It knew no name, but for sake of convienience I shall call it 'Undone'.

The elements did not flow as life blood through this land, but that is not to say they were not present. They were weak, and had far from the mighty power they have have in Skylands, but some of them were there, though only in the fact that there was earth below, air above, water in the seas, fire could come alight, life could grow, tech could be made, and there was light and there was darkness. But, in this world, there was no magic: only in the distant stars did even the whisper of magic exist. And of course, without magic, none of the other elements could truly have any power.

There is, of course, another reason the elements were so weak in this world. There was an ancient being, supposedly formed from the primordial, eldritch chaos in the first days of the universe. This creature went by no name, for what few beings alive at the time feared to give it one. If it had a true shape, none had lived to see it. But worst of all, this creature devoured what little living energy each thing in that world had. It would leave empty ruin in its wake everywhere that it meant; anything left was drained and razed. This creature was pure destruction given form.

Undone was a wasteland of chaos and fear.

Or, it was. Until the day when a massive ball of strange light came speeding to the surface of this forsaken world. It was as if a miniature sun had decided to land upon that wretched place. While the few who know the story to this point believe that this forgein entity was magic, they are very incorrect. This object, this strange star, was in truth a living, breathing entity what was a living form of creation. fitting considering its soon to be enemy.

Speaking of which, The horrendus beast senesed the great power in this being and attempted to consume it, like it had so much else. But, for the first time, the creature was met with resistance enough to turn it back, to wound it even. Still, this first battle was intense, and this being of creation was was wounded as well, and they understood that they required help to truly defeat the beast. So, this being brought a power within itself to life, creating the Prime Elemental of Magic, and with their assistance that brought out the true power in the other Elements and from there the other Prime Elementals formed.

This drove the beast of Destruction to rage, and it struck out again, sucking the new, more powerful energy of the elements away as it once more chalenged the being of creation. However, the being of creation had had a plan and promtly put it into action. With a clever trick, the being of creation trapped creature of destruction within a bottomless pitand with the Prime Elementals, destroyed the world it once ruled.

Then, the being of creation and the Prime Elementals looked to the infinite sky, and there they created a new world, in which each being, each inch, everything, was teeming with the energies of the elements. And as a final touch, the being of creation gave this new land the power to always expand and grow. And in that way, Skylands was born. Over time, the Prime Elements left the places where other beings could reach and went to their own special realms.

As their kingdoms grew, the awful beast tok a vow: if it ever escaped from its prison, it would rip apart the world these beings that had trapped it had created. And if it ever manages to fulfil that vow...well, it won't be pretty

But, that is the true story of Skylands' creation. Included in further pages is more information that any who wish to leanr more might find useful. I hope this book teches someone something someday.

«^»«^»«^»

"The rest is diagrams and stuff..." Spyro said slowly, after he had read the story aloud, "if this means what I think it means..." He trailed off, worried.

"The Skyquakes are this...beast thing...consuming parts of Skylands" Tree Rex finished the thought.

"Wholly. Shit." Pop Fizz said suddenly, "well...Imma brew up some...er...'extra strong soda'...if anybody wants to take their minds off that for a bit."

This got the gremlin several strange looks. though oddly enough, the looks only lasted for a few seconds, after that, Rattle Shake requested a whiskey, Stealth Elf didn't care so long as it tasted like tea, and everyone could tell by the look on his face that DK wanted something banana flavored as he literally always did.

"Coming right up!" Pop Fizz grinned, glad he could lighten the mood.

"I will help." Said Chill getting up and heading off to the kitchen before the confused gremlin.

* * *

Well, that was actually as interesting to write as I hope it is to read. Also, I told people I'd still have humor.

 **Alchohol too...since when did you get so ballsy?...since when can I say ballsy?**

I've grown up a bit, mentally speaking

 **I dont know if that's good or bad.**

Hard to say. I guess we'll find out.

Belak Out


	4. News

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 4: News

"We're going to need the others, aren't we?" Tree Rex said grimly, "the teams that were out on missions, I mean. Either way, we'd need to contact them but the way things are, it might be hard to find them. Everyone has different people they can trust, and with how fast word travels in Skylands, they'll know about the island before long, which means they won't go back there, even if they could."

"We've been in hopeless situations before," Spyro responded, "it can't be that hard to track them."

"There's no problem finding them, Buzz knows every single mission that every Skylander goes on," Spy Rise said solemly, coming over, "the question is if fifteen Skylanders will be enough. I mean, yes, we've kicked ass of all sorts of big bads with the same amount, or less even, but judging by that book, this thing we're up against this time is on a whole new level. Not to mention that morale won't be the best, we've all probably lost somebody important to us..." He trailed off and hung his head. A sad realization dawned on Spyro then.

"He wasn't on mission, was he Spy?" the purple dragon questioned gently.

The mechanical agent shook his head slowly.

"Grim?" Tree Rex asked, his head tilted, "but he can't be dead."

"The destruction takes elemental energy when it causes ghe Skyquakes," Spyro explained, "it takes undeath away from the undead. Undeads have died before from it,"

"But," Tree Rex tried to retort, only to be cut off.

"He's gone, alright? That's all there is to it." Spy Rise said, somewhat angirly, "even Reapers die..."

"I can garuantee you he survived," Tree Rex said sternly.

"How?" Aske Spy Rise, begining to loose his temper.

Tree Rex pointed behind both of the other two, to a chunk of land barely as big as a small car that had just knocked gently against the ship (which had been moving more slowly for a while). And on this tiny little peice of land, lay an unconscious, but very clearly alive, Grim Creeper. Spy Rise quickly scrambled over and carried Grim to the infirmary. "If that wasn't luck, I don't know what is," Tree Rex said as they left, "the odds are millions to one. I'd say it bodes pretty well for the future."

"Let's just hope we don't use up all that luck before we need it," Spyro responded.

"Yeah, that might be true," the giant said solemly, "hey, though, is there anything else that could help in that book?"

"I didn't really check, " Spyro answered, "the first few pages after the story part are just lots of diagrams and stuff like that. Seemed like some historian just cataloging research, but I only looked at about five pages after I finished the reading, and there's clearly a LOT more pages than that here..." he opened it once more and absentmindedly flipped through the pages. Then he stopped at a page with peculiar writing and symbols sprawled across it.

"Didn't get far enough to see this, for example," he said, showing the pages he had stopped on to Tree Rex, "wonder what it all means..."

"I recognise some of these. only a few, though, and I not fully sure from wh..." he stopped and grinned a bit, pointed to a specific symbol, "But we both've seen this one plenty of times, and I know damn sure exactly where."

Spyro looked where he was pointing and gaped slightly.

"It's the symbol on Kaos' head." Spyro said, "I always kinda wondered what that meant. Either way, we don't have time. We need to find the others first"

"Well, I got good news there!" Shouted Buzz from the helm, "We're where the smaller group got sent. tiny cluster islands called The Staircoil: place winds up/down like a spiral staircase. We should be able to find the them somewhere here. It's not very big, so our best bet it to split up, send one group down from the top and one up from the bottom."

"Me and Tree Rex will head each group," Spyro said, "I'll take top down."

"I'm okay climbing." Tree Rex nodded.

"Like hell you are!" Stealth Elf said, as she and the others came back (all of them surprisingly sober), "We had a hard enough time getting both of you back into your current wretched conditions, you are not going on mission yet!"

"But.." Spyro began, but was immediatly cut off by Rattle Shake

"There aren't many islands, and judging by the fact that a group is on mission yet, there won't be many monsters, but that doesn't change the fact that you two are barely in good enough condition to walk around the ship," the snake said, "we can't risk you doing this. Besides, two groups of three will be fine, and me and Stealth should be able to lead the teams. "

"I can agree with that." Stealth Elf said.

"Well..." the purple dragon considiered for a moment, then tried to put a tiny bit more weight on his injured leg and winced and when he looked at Tree Rex he could tell the giant seemed drained. So he sighed and nodded, "alright, pick you teams."

"Well, Spy, me and you should stick together, being the only Swappers" Rattle Shaked said, and the mechanical agent nodded, you got next pick if you want, Stealth."

"Alright, well, both DK and Pop are heavy hitters," the life elemental said slowly, "but I prefer speed and brains as first choice. Chill, you're with me."

Stealth glanced slightly at Chill for a moment.

"Hey, Rattle Shake," she said after that minute had passed, "mind if we take Pop Fizz?"

"Sure," the snake shurgged, "was gonna pick Donkey Kong anyway. He talks less."

"We'll keep an eye on you from here," Buzz said, "though you should be more than safe. After all, there's gonna be nine Skylanders in those islands. Either way, head on out."

«^»«^»«^»

The lower team, Rattle's, was the first to be dropped off.

"So, where do ya think they are?" The snake questioned the other two.

"Hopefully they finished their mission by now," Spy Rise responded, "so they should be kicking back somewhere. Acorrding to Buzz, we're looking for Drobot, Flameslinger, and Wrecking Ball. Not a hard bunch to find."

DK beat his chest in agreement and gestured to a path. The other two nodded and began to walk follow. As suspected, no monsters were encountered, but something still felt, wrong, like there was an unusual shadow over the whole place. But they didn't seem to be in immediate danger so they mostly ignored the feeling

The moment the second group touched the ground at the top of the Staircoil, Pop Fizz shivered slightly.

"I got a bad feeling goin on in my gut..." he said in answer to a look from Stealth.

"Maybe you should drink more than just soda then." the elf sighed and shook her head.

"Remember, it was ne of these feelings of his that saved us from that skyquake..." Chill reminded the life elemental, "what if it's another one?"

"Oh it ain't that bad a feeling," Pop Fizz interupted, "but it ain't good either. ."

"Well, either way, we have to keep moving," Stealth submitted, "we have to find the others, if your gut feeling means anything, they might be hurt. So let's go, alright?"

They agreed and quickly began the descent, and before that had gone far, they were suddenly met by a spherical object that came crashing through the shrubs. It was Wrecking Ball.

"Wrecking Ball, what's wrong?" Pop Fizz asked, grabbing the mutated grub and stopping his rolling.

"Routine mission, right? We finished super easy but then..." The little creature squirmed and tried to hid his face, "these...things showed up...I got away, but Dro's wings are broken and Slinger can't outrun them. They're trapped"

"Oh no. Wrecking Ball, you good to fight?" Stealth asked.

"I'm going to help save the others, if that's what you mean." Wreckking Ball responded.

"Come, now, come on, let's move out."

* * *

Uhhhhghghghgggghhhhh *beats face against desk*

 **Writer's block?**

Forgive me if this sounds shakespearian, but to me each story is a great, wild beast, which I must do my best to cling to and guide to the end. Sometimes, the beast charges straight, sometimes it goes in the wrong direction, and; worst of all; sometimes it sleeps. When it sleeps is worse that anything else it does, for the when the beast sleeps the story moves neither forward nor back.

 **...woah, dude.**

Yeah, I need some pop or tea or something. Luckily though, I have the rest dof about ten chapters from now planned out.

 **Well, that's good.**

Yeah. Anyway.

Belak Out


	5. Nox

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 5: Nox

The group rushed after Wrecking Ball, charging down the strange spiral. As they went, it wasn't long before they saw the lights of the battle on a lower island: fire and lazers intermingled with a peculiar noxius, blackish light.

"What...what is going on down there..." Stealth said, stopping to look.

"By the looks of it the bad things have them backed into a corner," Wrecking Ball said, staring down, "the lights from attacks are closer are closer together more frantic than when I last looked... We need to get down there fast."

"Then why are we taking the long way?" Pop Fizz said, grinning madly before leaping over the edge.

"Looks like even morons have good ideas at times," Chill scoffed, then added after a second of thought "though in any other case this would be another dumb plan." None the less she jumped after.

"Kinda wondering why I didn't think of this..." Wrecking Ball pondered as he rolled off the side.

Stealth Elf simply sighed and calmly stepped over the edge

«^»

Flameslinger had never in his life run out of arrows for his bow, his quiver was enchanted after all. He'd always enjoyed the wonderful gift, but had never truly apreciated having infinite ammo. Until now, that is, as he was spending countless amounts of arrows fighting enemies that never seemed to end. No, that wasn't right, there were only so many of them, about twenty he guessed. The problem wasn't with numbers; he could take down twenty normal enemies without aiming. These creatures simply didn't seem to want to die, and what was worse they didn't act solid: they moved like something somewhere between gas and liquid, but none the less he knew from how hard they hit that they were solid.

He 'looked', so to speak, over at Drobot. The cyborg dragon looked in bad shape; parts of his wings were smoking and sparking. But none the less, Drobot seemed to refuse to go down without a fight. Flameslinger could mech dragon had had a fire burning in his heart for years, the kind makes one refuse to ever give up. It was that fire that had clearly made Drobot stay behind when Slinger had tried to send him with Wrecking Ball to look for help.

Together they had managed to at least keep a perimeter with a ruined hut on the edge of the island as their backing and a line of burning underbrush and logs, and none of the creatures seemed to want to mess with the roaring flames, but the creatures had ranged attacks, and the fire was begining to fizzle out. Slinger knew that the instant an opening appeared in that ring of flame, it'd be curtains for him and Drobot, so he did his best to keep them burning, which wouldn't normally have been that hard. But what little food there was for the fire was dry; it was burning up too fast and wasn't leaving enough to keep the flames alive for long. It took a near constant barrage of his flaming arrows to keep the permiter in tact.

Then, as if suddenly launched by a catapult a strange object, darker than pitch and utterly round and smooth, like the core of a blackhole came soaring over the smoke and landed a few feet away. Slinger stared at it for a moment, but something literally clicked in Drobot and the dragon tackled the elf and gave a slightly pained burst with his thrusters, sending them both behind one of the half broken walls of the hut that they had stood in front of, just as the object exploded. But it wasn't a firey explosion, it was cold, not in an ice like way but in a sort of lifeless way. Cold like a void; a place without oxygen.

Flameslinger realised what the bomb was really for too late. He popped up and nocked an arrow, only to find his wall of fire gone and the enemies advancing slowly. He took a deep breath and readied himself for his final battle. He glanced at Drobot to find the dragon seemingly charging some final blast and the elf grinned. At least they would both die with honor.

He turned back towards his enemy and noticed they had stopped and were looking up. It was then he realised he could here a strange noise coming from above. He looked up to see an immistakable purple creature falling from above and screaming at the top of its lungs, and if one looked hard enough they could just see four other creatures falling behind it. Flameslinger now felt fairly certain that he was not going to die, and he laughed; he knew this was going to be fun to watch

«^»

The lower team weren't at a good enough vantage point to see any of this, in fact so far they hadn't found anything of any interest. At all.

"Well, this has been a goddam waste of time," Rattle Shake hissed a bit, "they were probably up top this whole time."

"If everything was okay, we'd have been picked up by now," Spy Rise said, "either way, until we get word we have to keep going up."

"I know, I know," the snake gave in, "trust me, I'll be the last to abandon a mission, but I still think this is a waste of fucking time."

"That is pretty true," Spy Rise admitted with a sigh.

Suddenly Donkey Kong made a loud, almost howling sort of ape noise and charged into some bushes.

"Huh. I've only seen him act like that if stolen bananas are involved." Spy Rise said confused.

"Or when there's trouble." Rattle Shake said, readying his rather unconventional serpent gun.

"Good point, let's follow quick," Spy Rise nodded, scuttling after DK.

«^»

Pop Fizz laughed maniacly as he crashed between his friends and the strange black monsters, making a small crater and a large cloud of dust. The creatures inched closer as everything went quite within the cloud: they couldn't see anything through it and thought the purple being that had fallen from the sky had perished in the fall. Just before the dust cleared, Pop Fizz leapt out in berserk mode and tackled the nearest one, causing it and himself to roll the direction of his momentum for a brief moment before they came to a stop and Pop Fizz hurled the creature a good two hundred yards off the edge of the island.

The nineteen other strange creatures quickly got over the innitial confusion of the event and were about to attack Pop Fizz, who was still watching the one he'd thrown fall, when three frigid javelins impaled three creatures, freezing them solid in mere seconds. Then Chill dropped behind Pop Fizz and knocked him upside the head.

"Watch your back, Clueless," she scolded him slightly.

Pop Fizz quickly whiped around and nodded. As he pounced on and shattered the frozen beings, Chill shoke her head and smiled ever so barely while she pulled out another ice spear. Then came a slight noise like elastic strecthing as Wrecking Ball caught a treebranch with his tounge and swung just enough to change his vertical innertia into horizontal, flinging himself into a wall so that he began bouncing back and forth all over, creating a dangerous game of pinball. Meanwhile, two of the unusual monsters suddenly crumpled and fell with the only sound made being a barely audible laugh from a currently invisible Stealth Elf. Together they managed to pick off four more of the beasts, leaving only ten left.

That's when things went sour.

The group of beast all stopped movement suddenly, forming a ring facing outwards. They breathed deeply in unison and together they released a sound that was utterly and truly indescribable, for in any and all of the languages of this world there is only one word that even begins to explain the noise: eldritch. And as they made that awful, horrible, incomprehensible sound, what looked like a black hole seemed to form in the center of their ring and the air seemed pulled in. Then just as suddenly as they had started, the beasts stopped their earshattering vocalizations and the sphere between them burst like a soap bubble, sending dust in all directions.

When the Skylanders could see once again a tall, muscular, vaguely male figure covered in a some sort of cloak that seemed to be made of the void stood where it had once been had been. It seemed to have wings made of some noxious fog, or perhaps it just emitted the substance from its back. It tilted up its head and the heroes saw the most disturbing thing about it: it had no face, instead a swirling inward vortex took the place of facial features. Well, it did havea facial feature: as though part of the vortex, two of what appeared to be holes in existence were place in the position of eyes: they were both a color that seemed not a color, as though they were just areas of pure nothingness, and their pupils where made of spheres of what appeared to be a black fire.

Chill was the first to recover from the initial shock and with a slight yell she brought the others to their senses as well, then she, Stealth Elf and Wrecking Ball all began to charge toward the new creature as Pop Fizz opened another bottle of berserk potion and lifted it to his mouth, planning to stack the effect and go into his hyperberserk form, which was the as big as any of the Giants had ever been. But before any of them could fully make their move, the new creature simply turned in a small circle and calmy locked its eyes on each of them in turn. And just like that, they froze in place; unable to move an inch, with three just about to lunge and Pop Fizz with the bottle just barely in his mouth.

The creatures eyes contorted in what would have been a smile if it had a mouth, when suddenly a surprise attack came from the ruined hut; enoug flaming arrows and lazer blasts fired at once in essentially a massive ball of energy went hurtling towards the being. In response he twitched his head in the direction the attack came from and it vanished into thin air, the other two heroes now rendered immobile as well. Then a sound like a raspy intake of breathe came from the being, then that same noise formed into words

"These that summoned me are a small number of many: Ravagelings, they are called, the army of destruction," the being spoke in its dry, echoey voice, "I am Nox, their general and cheif servant under our master. It is my purpose to gather food for said master, so that he may grow stronger than his foes of old. Your souls shall feed him nicely."

Suddenly the sound of shattering glass invaded the quiet air and Nox whipped around and saw Pop Fizz charging towards him. Nox glared at Pop Fizz, but the gremlin didn't even slow down. The ravagelings adjusted their line so they were all between Pop Fizz and Nox, but the purple monstrosity suddenly became a flurry of claws and teeth, shredding every one to bits before leaping high into the air. Nox flung up his arms and narrowed his eyes, and everyone present could literally see the energy he was pumping into what he was doing, but none the less Pop Fizz reached the top of his arc and plumeted towards the being, whose eyes went wide as in a final attempt to stop this psycotic thing from reaching him launched what looked like a smooth round sphere from his hands. The object knocked Pop Fizz off course, but just barely, it is was only half a second before the gremlin rolled back up, spon and threw the sphere back at the speed of a cannonball. On contanct with Nox it exploded in a wave of unusual energy that washed over the strange, armored creature, clearly the effect the sphere was meant to have on Pop Fizz. Nox screamed and crumpled, then looked up at Pop Fizz as the gremlin walked over to him. The two made eye contact for a split instant and Nox hissed like an animal suddenly confronted by something it had never seen before. He made to move away, but Pop Fizz grabbed him and held him face to face.

"Who or what do you work for?" the purple gremlin snarled

"My master is the lord of destruction, the truest and greatest of gods," Nox answered, what sounded like fear in his voice, "For while most gods were created of nothing, my master created the nothing that they were born of. And he shall return all to nothing once more"

As he said the last part, Nox's voice became slightly defiant, but Pop Fizz simply growled lowly.

"Tell me how to stop it" The purple creature added pointedly. To that Nox just laughed.

"You don't; we will eliminate all," Nox chuckled, "and with that, I leave thee."

Suddenly he vanished into thin air and the immobile Skylanders all dropped to the ground from the sudden return of motion, panting slightly. Pop Fizz roared and beat the ground with both his fists as he slowly shifted back to his normal form. After a moment, Drobot approached him, limping and sparking slightly.

"Query; how is it you able to free yourself from immobilising power of the creature called Nox?" the cyborg dragon questioned.

"I never actually was frozen," Pop Fizz admitted, "I just drank the potion really, really slowly and waited until he was distraced to jump him. I don't know why it didn't work on me but it didn't..."

"Interesting...I shall have to study this further if you do not mind," Drobot mused.

"Only after we get everyone back to the ship and checked out, then sure," Pop Fizz shrugged.

"Speaking of which," Stealth Elf pulled out a small device and spoke into it, "upper team, ready for pick up. We've got wounded skylanders."

Flynn's voice came through the device loud and clear.

"On it, best pilot ever comin' round to your location," he said, then as though it was compulsory, "boom."

«^»

After Spyro and Tree Rex had been filled in , Flameslinger and Drobot were taken down to the medbay to be looked at.

"So...it is this embodiment of destruction thing..." Tree Rex said, somewhat hopelessly, "how are we supposed to beat the actual thing if its minions alone can do things like that..."

"It isn't hopeless," Stealth Elf said, "Pop Fizz wasn't effected by Nox's powers. Maybe Drobot can figure out why and give us all that power."

"Maybe..." Spyro admitted, then paused, "did anybody remember to contact the lower team?"

A shock suddenly spread through those assembled, and Flynn quickly pulled out his com device and gave it to Spyro.

"Lower team, are you guys alright?" the dragon asked worriedly.

"Yeah, we're alright," cam Rattle Shake's voice through the com, "but we found...something... You should probably come look."

"Go it," Spyro answered, "Flynn, take the ship to the lower team's location."

«^»

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousand of miles beneath the clouds below Skylands, the creature Nox walked across a grey, barren wasteland towards to a pit that sank thousands of miles further down and down. When he reached the edge, he kneeled and sucked in raspily as he did when confronting the Skylanders. A quite rumbling noise answered his rasp and he nodded.

"My master, I have regrettable news," Nox said, head down, "I have encountered...a complication in our plans...a group of heroes within whom the cursed energies of our foes flow strong..."

Even before Nox had finished speaking, the very ground began to shake as though it were angry.

"It is not my fault, oh great one!" Nox pleaded, "they had among one who may abilities could effect in no way."

The ground began to shale even more and small geysers of putrid gas sprung up here and there around the pit.

"Yes, my lord. I understand," Nox said, flinching, "I shall strike this group again, and their sould shall be your banquet."

The gas geysers subsided and what sounded like a slow intake of breath echoed from the pit.

"I agree entirely," Nox answered, "the peculiarity shall be removed from the equation ere I even strike."

* * *

Aaaaannnd DONE! WHOO!

 **Took you long enough.**

Holiday vacation, alright? I had this halfway done, then that happened and then I didn't work on it until this week hit.

 **Well, i suppose if you were writing a normal book you'd be doing it right enough. Not like anybody would be waiting for indiviual chapters that way...**

Thank you.

 **But youre not writing a book and people want more chapters.**

Oh shut up.

 **No. Now what the hell was up with the thing with Pop Fizz?**

Think to the things I've written. Something makes Pop Fizz different from the other Skylanders.

 **...are you going to reveal the answer in this story?**

Oh, yeah, definatly. Just not quite yet.

(also I changed the ending to this so I hope people notice)

Now then.

Belak Out


	6. Much Ado

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 6: Much Ado

The ship was quickly repositioned to a place right next to one of the lower islands, and Donkey Kong and Rattle Shake were already waiting there when the gangplank was lowered. Spyro and Tree Rex came down and explained what had happened to the others. After listening intently, the snake and the ape began to lead the way.

"I guess DK had an odd feeling and wound up finding this.. Spy's still at the location taking pictures and the like," Rattle Shake said as they turned off the clear path, "I don't know what it was but something about it seemed...strange. It might have had something to do with what happened to Stealth and the others..."

DK nodded and made a slight grunt of agreement as they came to a patch of tall, thick ferns and other underbrush near the side of a large-ish hill. Here Rattle Shake moved aside a few leaves and fronds, revealing the small entrance to a cave; Tree Rex had to duck slightly to get in, but the others didn't have a problem. After a short tunnel, they found themselves in a surprisingly large, room, it was lit by lanterns or flashlights that the three who had found it had clearly brought, and the walls were absolutely lined with peculiar glyphs and symbols. What is more, the room's shape was an almost perfectally spherical dome.

"Woah, you guys weren't kidding. This really is strange," Spyro said, then suddenly he stopped and looked closer at a certain spot in the wall "wait a minute...hey, Spy Rise did you get of all of this?"

"Yeah, I got photos and scans of the whole thing," the agent responded with a confirmative nod, "I'll print some off for you back on the ship."

"Good, good," the purple dragon answered with a nod, "becuase I have some examinations I need to make, but we need to hurry up and find the other four who were on mission."

There was some quick packing up of things five Skylanders made their way back to the ship. Almost as soon as they were on board Flynn entered in the coordinates for their next stop and they were off. Spy Rise after a few minutes, Spy Rise handed Spyro a folder full of images of the cave walls, then went back to check on Grim Creeper.

Spyro took Tree Rex to a sort of meeting room on the ship and layed down the pictures from the folder on the table. Then he carefully brought out the 'Before the Elements' book from a small safe in the corner of the room. He quickly opened to the page with the strange symbols and set the book next to the images.

"Look closely at these," the dragon said, "tell me if you see what I do."

The giant bent a little lower, examining the photos and looking at the book every new and again. After a moment he looked at Spyro.

"There's a lot of the same symbols," the big ent said, "even a few innstances of thhe same sequences of symbols."

"Exactly," Spyro answered with a smile, "which is proof the markings are a part of some language or another. I guessed before, but it's difficult to be sure in cases like this, unless you find the sort of thing we just found in that cave. Deciphering this language could be a major step in figuring out how to fight what's happening."

"But how are we going to figure out a language that probably hasn't been used millenia," Tree Rex said, "I bet nobody's even understood a word since before the Arkeyans even built their first robot. Who'd have any info from that far back?"

"Wait a minute, that's just it," Spyro said, "the Arkeyans were around for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years before they went bad, and they were always trying to learn new things. They must have come across this language before and probably even figured at least parts of it out."

"Maybe, but that's further back than anyways ever thought about before," the giant answered, "I doubt that even the oldest of them remembered that far back, even back in the old days when me and the other giants fought them."

"Of course they didn't, too far back," Spyro replied calmly, "but Arkeyan knowledge was never stored in minds alone."

"Digital storage," Tree Rex nodded, realisation dawning on him a bit, "fair. And they made their 'libraries' pretty much eternal. But how would we ever figured out where one was with the info we wanted?"

"I don't think we have too, my friend," Spryo grinned, "who do we know who either has or can establish wireless access to almost every Arkeyan database in existence?"

"Drobot." Tree Rex gaped, A smile quickly forming on his face, "and lucky for us, he's recovering well."

"Exactly," the purple dragon nodded, then he closed the book and placed it and the photos back in the safe, "but first we need to recover the last four."

"Yeah, that's fair," the wooden being repsonded as they made their way back to the main deck, "what was their mission anyway?"

"No clue," his friend answered him with a shrug, "Buzz said they told him they'd heard about something going down and went to check it out. Said it needed to be top secret or something like that."

"Hmph," Tree Rex shook his head, "Well, we'll need to send some skylanders to get them. I'd suggest it just be DK, Rattle Shake, and Stealth. They'd handle it best if things went sour."

The ship had already pulled up to an almost miniscule island which supported only five or so buildings, four of which were rather small and seemed to be store houses of some sort. The third was almost obviously some kind of 'truck' stop/pub. There were a few other ships and sky transport vessels parked around the island. The three choosen canidates quickly disembarked.

"Oh, this place seems nice," Rattle Shake commented, rolling his eyes, "how many saloons and bars and other places like this have we found that've been infested with bad guys?"

"It really is insanely clichéd," Stealth Elf commented with almost a laugh, "but by the place it suggests that these four found something about one of the troublemaking gangs of Skylands and are either planning an undercover mission or to beat the shit out of them."

"It's Swarm, Roller Brawl, Wolfgang, and Bowser," the snake retorted, "not exactly a group that does the sort of 'subtle' required to go undercover. Though I don't doubt that they could pass for the group that sort of gang would recruit."

Suddenly Donkey Kong made a short noise twice and pounded one fist on the ground. The other stopped dead and silent, knowing enough of the ape's odd sign language to understand. From the main-tavern building they heard crashing and pounding. Without another word they rushed forward, fearing that their friends were in danger. It wasn't long before they burst through the doors to find a strange scene.

From the doors the first thing that could be seen was a loose circle of rough looking characters of all different species. They were pounding on any available surface, stomping on the ground, and smashing empty glasses, all chanting 'chug' over and over again. Now and again they would cheer and money would clearly be passed around. The team of three carefully made their way through until they could see the center of the commotion. There sat Bowser and Swarm at opposite ends of a table that was so filled with pint glasses that they spilled onto the floor. On the floor with these glasses were several creatures that looked pretty much like the ones standing up, except they were all passed out cold, and among them was Wolfgang. Focusing back on Bowser and Swarm, the two were drinking insanely, downing entire pint glasses in a less than a minute, and whenever either finished one, another was brought to them from behind the bar. Roller Brawl was drinking something of an odd color near by and cheering on Swarm while literally beating away drunkards who tried to hit on her.

Before either of the three that had just arrived could react, the two started speaking with eachother.

"I won't loose, to you, turtle," Swarm with more of a lisp and a slur than his accent and buzzing normally caused, "this stuff isn't nearly as strong as the fermented honey-liquor I'm used to."

"Bwahaha! You might be used to stronger stuff, but I can tell you've never drank this much before!" Bowser answered, sounding precicely like his normal self in contrast to Swarm, "I haven't lost yet and I bet I beat you at least twenty cups ago, you're just too stubborn to give up, Now I know how Mario always felt! Bwahahaha!"

Stealth twitch slightly with visible rage, and even DK looked mad, but it was Rattle Shake whose anger went furthest. Before anybody knew what was happening, a viper-esque snake flew across the room and sunk its fangs into a shady-looking character across the room. The guy dropped as Rattle Shake pulled his hat down over his eyes and leapt onto a table, pointing his gun around the room.

"Alright, hómbres, clear out!" the snake said, "I've got enough ammo with me to fill each and every one of you with enough venom to sink the Leviathan, comprende?"

It wasn't long before the bar was virtually empty. Even those that were unconscious were dragged out by who was assumed to be their friends. Bowser still sat at the table and put a large hand to his face.

"Great, it's the fun police," Roller Brawl sighed, with a slight hiccup, "sherrif scaley-face, and deputy prissy-bitch."

"How can you four be out partying!?" Stealth Elf screamed at the other in genral. At whcih Bowser rolled his eyes.

"Like we're the only ones who do it. You two just couldn't resist the urge to get somebody in trouble, could you?" the koopa king said exasperatedly, then he noticed Donkey Kong and waved, "oh, hey DK. They sucked you into this too, huh?"

The ape pounded a fist against his chest a single time in answer, still looking rather upset. At that moment Swarm suddenly collapsed from the table, unconcscious. Bowser laughed and nearly jumped put of his chair at the event. That was when Rattle Shake tossed a glass at the koopa's head. Boswer turned with a fire in his eyes.

"Alright, you slithering creep, you wanna go that bad?" the turtle-esque being hefted his hammer from under his seat and stood up, "I've been itching for a good fight all day, so bring it!"

"You actually don't know, do you, amigo?" Rattle Shake said slowly, now somewhere between anger and sadness.

"Know what?" Roller Brawl asked, sobering up slightly, "were we needed back at HQ or something?"

"No, no, it's good that you were gone, actually," Stealth answered, "we had just been hoping you were doing something...not like this..."

"Okay, okay, now even I'm curious," Bowser said a bit anxiously, "what happened?"

"Well, the simple version is that a sky-quake hit HQ," Shake said sadly, "counting you four, there are only sixteen oficial Skylanders left."

Bowser seemed to deflate a bit at those words for a moment. Then suddenly he snorted and a puff of smoke flew from his nostrils, his face showing a steely determination.

"Donkey Kong, help me carry Swarm, you others can take Wolfgang," the koopa said with a stern tone in his voice. Without a word the others agreed and began the way back to the ship.

«^»«^»«^»

During and after all this, Spyro and Tree Rex went to show Drobot the symbols. They weren't the least bit surprised when he was told the cyborg dragon had already recovered and had went to a room on the ship he had essentially turned into his workshop. Once they found him and explained what they wanted he took the images and the book and stared at them for a long moment, quiet beeping and ringing noises happening in his skull. After a while he turned to them.

"I have searched through the majority of Arkeyan records that I have access to and have discovered that they did indeed document this language," Drobot said decisively, "though the records that I have access to merely state that it exists and locations were it was found. However, I have reason to believe that they did decypher the dialect as well and that the translations and other information was kept in other databases."

"Can you make a wireless connection to one with more info?" Tree Rex questioned, arms crossed.

"Not with the equipment currenlty available to me," the cyborg answered, then a grin spread across his face, "however, I am aware of a location that I am certain would have what is needed for me to do so and it is nearby to our current position."

"Well then, that's lucky," Spyro smiled, "we'll head that way then."

* * *

 **So. Excuses for the latness of this?**

I realised the idea I had at first was stupid and kinda stopped caring about this story for a while.

 **Is that it?**

Yes it is. And before anybody asks about the importance of the whole bar scene; I was having fun, alright? I'm allowed to do that.

 **How about this question, what excuse do you have for the fact that Bowser wasn't the slightest bit drunk even though he's been pretty much wasted off of stuff that isn't booze before?**

You have no proof of that second part and as for the first, I don't care where it's from or if it even is canon, but as far as I care Bowser is immune to poison. And also I just thought'd be cool for him to have an infinite alchohol tolerancy. Now shut up, Xirc.

 **No promises.**

Oi... Anyway, speaking to the actual readers now, I always apreciate feedback so be sure to reveiw.

 **Please don't. I like to see him freak out thinking nobody likes his writing.**

Shut the fuck up before I decide to stop having you be a thing, Xirc.

 **Make me!**

Fine.

Belak Out


	7. Show Time

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 7: Show Time

"The island we are going to has served as a scrapyard for many races and civilizations for unknown generations," Drobot said after he had given Flynn the directions, "because of this and possibly other factors, there are many rare or useful peices of technology there that need only minor repairs, though there are some that need much more work or are irreprable. In either case, the equipment I require will doubtlessly be stored there. Along with that there is a form of workshop there which is owned and operated by a cohort of mine makes it the optimal stop for us in our current situation, and the medical facilities there are better than what we have as of current. While we are here I will also be able see if anything can be done in regards of upgrading the ship to better suit the situations."

"Gotcha," Spyro said with a nod, then he hesitated for a moment, "is it safe for us to stay long, though?"

"I can assure you that the island is quite well defended," Drobot said, "not to mention, based on what we know of our new enemies, and our current location, I can assure that it is highly unlikely to be targeted. This, combined with what I have previously told you, is what caused me to choose it as an optimal location for us to rest. But if you feel unsafe keeping all of the skylanders here, I am begining to formulate a sort of theory that requires gathing of info via travel to certain locations, that travel would allow for some of us to travel and keep busy. Speaking of which, do we have any documentation of the places skyquakes have occurred?"

"Yeah, sure," the purple dragon answered, confused, "There's a few maps of it stored here on the ship, and one of the Mabu told me they'd managed to get most of the new stuff Critz had presented that probably give more detail and stuff. Why do you ask?"

"I would prefer not to give that information until after I have confirmed or disproven the one of my theories that it pertains to," the cyborg answered with an odd tone, then he looked up and smiled slightly, "now then, we are arriving at our destination."

The others turned and looked, and what they saw was indeed a scrapyard; large metal of all sorts of metal and mechanic objects went on for a massive distance, it even looked more or less like most of the ground was made of leftover metal. Yet everything had a strange sense of order to it; there were wide paths, almost roads between the hills of scrap which themselves all seemeed to be orgainsed and sorted in some way. Walking among the broken and discarded metals were several robots and automotans of different shapes and sizes, each seeming like they worked at the place.

On the near side of the island was a big open space with several oddly pleasant looking gardens, both foods and flowers, around it, and in more or less the center was a somewhat large, odd looking metal structure. Assembled around it were several other buildings of varying size, making any with any sense conclude it was a sort of small town.

As soon as they could see the island, Drobot lept off the ship and rocketed towards the island stopping in front of the rather large door until a figure came out that looked something like a lemur with a welding mask on the top of it's head and a stained lab coat covering what appeared to be a battered blacksmith's apron. As the ship drew nearer, the two seemed to talk with each other happily, and once the ship was in place at the dock, the two came walking up to the descending gangplank.

"Everyone, I would like to introduce an old acquaintance of mine," Drobot said, with a gesture to his friend, " this is Tweak, he owns and more or less runs this island. As to how we know one another, it should suffice to say that he acted as a sort of mentor to me some time ago. He will be aiding me in the several tasks that I have set upon myself to preform while we are staying upon his island of residence."

"Yeah, welcome to Cog-Shift island," Tweak said with a smile, and a slight nod, "feel free to help yourself to anything in scrapyard you think might be useful, and the facilities in the l are open to you all at any time."

"Speaking of which," Spyro said, "some of us, are hurt pretty bad, including me and Tree Rex here to an extent, and Dro said you had a better hospital than what we can provide for on the ship."

"Oh, yeah," Tweak nodded, looking worried, "I'll show you the way. Not too many organic folks living here or in the area, but it's still goo to have somebody around who's a good medic. And we do, a good guy who's good with both magic and science mehtods. Not quite the house of Elrond or anything of the like, but good healing none the less."

"Who's Elrond?" Tree Rex asked, to which Tweak just shook his head and sighed.

"Nevermind," the lemur-creature responded, "follow me."

As Tweak brought them into the little town, he told them what the huildings they past served as. Turned out that most of them were just storage, and that, excluding the large structure which was Tweak's worshop, only six or seven of the larger buildings had anybody living in them. The healer of the island lived in the second largest building; he was an aged, kind faced elf with a short white beard. He seemed happy to help in the situation and within half an hour the wounded or incapacitated Skylanders, including Spyro and Tree Rex (though they were begruding of it slightly), were under his care.

After things had settled back down, Drobot came up to Spyro with Tweak.

"Spyro, we have acquired the data, both digital and physical that we required from the ship," the cyborg said with a slight tilt of his head, "do we have permission to take them into Tweak's laboratory and attempt to use them and other Arkeyan databases to find useful information?"

"Go ahead, Dro, you don't need to ask on this one," Spyro responded, "but hurry up on that mission thing you talked about earlier, of the others are getting antsy."

"Affirmative." was the only response before Drobot and Tweak went off to the larger building together.

«^»«^»«^»

Tweak's lab lay near the center of his large workshop, and was in and over itself a good size; a good four hundred suqare feet. There the two tech experts the pictures of the domed room out on a table with the other physical info they had found, like Critz's book. In the middle of the table sat a large map showing the locations of previous Skyquakes.

"We shall first need to determine if my theory is accurate," Drobot said to the other, "meaning we shall need to determine wether or not the map that I have recovered from Arkeyan archives, which supposedly shows the location of instances of the peculiar unknown language, is accurate. To do so we shall require some of the skylanders who are in condition to do so to venture to the areas marked on said map."

"Dro...we're alone" Tweak said, somewhat sternly, "Stop that."

The cyborg dragon stopped what he was doing and sighed, then smiled weakly.

"You're right, sorry..." Drobot said, "it's just been a while since I've been able to...let loose a bit."

"That bad, huh?" Tweak asked sympathetically, "You want to go for a walk for a bit before we get to work here?"

"You know that I can't, even though I wish I could," the cyborg responded sadly, "more than ever I have a duty to Skylands. If we don't do this, everything could vanish."

"Always that noble hard working spirit," Tweak said with a sad smile, "sometimes I wish you didn't have it."

"I know I haven't visited in a while, and I'm sorry," Drobot said, then paused for a minute before continuing, "you've started letting other organics live on the island, though. When did that start?"

"Two and a half years ago, six months since you'd last visited. They're all good people, they all provide help and services around here, and they all needed a place to stay..." the lemur-esque being answered, a tear streaming down his face as he continued, "...And I was lonely..."

"Okay..." the dragon said, looking down, then he quietly added, "I missed you, you know."

Tweak nodded then wiped his eyes and shook his head. "Let's get to work," he said with a grin.

"Agreed," nodded Drobot.

«^»«^»«^»

A humanoid robot came rushing out to find Spyro before long, a rolled up peice of paper held in its hands. It found the dragon with his wing in a splint, resting in the sunlight in one of the gardens, Tree Rex was nearby, seemingly meditating

"Sirs Tweak and Drobot have requested this be delivered to you," the robot said, handing Spyro the paper, "the two are currently too busy to have delivered it by hand, but have included a note with what I have been requested to inform you is a map."

As the robot left somewhat hastily, Spyro and Tree Rex looked at the map, which did indeed have a note attatched on the inside.

"Looks like Drobot and Tweak got locations of places like the one we saw back in the Staircoil," Spyro said, after reading through the note, "they think having info on a few more of them will help themfigure some stuff out."

"May as well send somebody to check out the nearby ones," Tree Rex said, "you know Stealth and Shake are itching to get on the next mission."

"What else is new?" Spyro half laughed, then nodded a bit, "but they are the best choices to lead parties out of our other options. Any other ideas for who to send?"

"Wrecking Ball's ready to go," Tree Rex answered, then added after pondering for a moment, "and I say we send Bowser. I get the feeling it's his fault we have three Skylanders drunk to the point of uselessness, so why not punish him a bit."

"I suppose you have a point," Spyro sighed, "plus, knowing Bowser he's probably just waiting for a potential fight. Sure."

The four picked were collected, given a small transporter ship and sent off to the nearest location on the map. After about two hours they arived at a moderatly sized island. They island seemed to be comprised of small, wooded pleatues encircling a central area of denser vegiation. Bowser huffed slightly as he hopped onto land.

"Great, so we just have to scour this entire place in the hopes that there's some words scribbled on some walls somewhere here," the koopa king grumbled, "and I doubt there'll even be anything to fight, so the only other person here without a stick up there ass is gonna be Wrecking Ball."

"Was that supposed to be an insult to me?" The grub asked tenitively as he followed Bowser.

"Not really," Bowser answered with a shrug, "more that you're not really the type I hang out with. But it was definatly an insult to these two." he gestured at Rattle Shake and Stealth Elf at the last sentence

"Well I guess the bit of respect we got back in the bar is over," Rattle Shake commented back rolling his eyes, "but just shut up and start looking around."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Bowser snorted back as a retort, "I'm just saying that it would have been nice if somebody more fun had gotten to come wi-..."

Bowser suddenly stoped mid sentence, his eyes narrowing as he sniffed at the air. After a moment he made a strange growling noise and hefted his hammer in both hands. He looked back at the other and got across that he wanted them to follow him with only a swift jerk of his neck.

"What the..." Stealth Elf began, but then shook her head, "why should we even listen to him?"

"Because this is exactly how Donkey Kong started acting just before he found the last word room," Rattle Shake answered, quickly slithering after Bowser.

Stealth raised an eyebrow but followed after with Wrecking Ball. Bowser hurried along at a surprising pace, barrelling through the brush and trees, before long he managed to outspeed the others and they lost sight of him; having to track mostly by the trail left by his rampage. Before long the path led them to an opening near the inner edge of the platue, with a clear, gently sloping path down into the denser forest.

"How the hell is he that fast?" Stealth Elf questioned as she came into the clearing, "and how the hell did he vanish without so much as a footprint?!"

"No idea, but he can't be far," Rattle Shake replied, gasping with a slight hissing noise, "he'll turn back around when he realises we couldn't keep up. Most likely out of mixed anger and disapointment instead of actually giving a shit about us, knowing him."

Suddenly they heard movemtn coming their way from the other side of the upper vegetation.

"Speak of the devil," Rattle Shake continued with a slight chuckle, "or turtle-demon-thing in this case..."

"Uhm, guys..." Wrecking Ball said, voice quivering, "that doesn't smell like Bowser..."

It was at that moment that the line of shrubs and trees suddenly shriveled and seemingly turned to dust before their very eyes. As they watched with horror, the vanishing plants suddenly gave way to the unmistakable, semi-shifting forms of Ravegings. Wrecking Ball, without hesitating, curcled into a ball and steam rolled into the first one that had come out.

"So these are those things you guys saw last time," Rattle Shake hissed, already firing snakes at the creatures, "you weren't kidding when you said they were weird."

"But not that much of a problem," Stealth answered, leaping at two of them and driving her daggers right through, "we just need to rid of them fast, otherwise they might call in the other thing."

"Oh, you'll find it is too late for that," came a sharp, inwardly breathing voice. Before the three Skylanders could even fully turn towards the source of the sound, a spark ball of strange energy went hurdling towards them. But before it hit them, a large, silver hammer was suddenly swung down ontop of it. The ball of energy disolved on contact with the ground as Bowser hefted his hammer back up.

"No wonder you guys are so slow," the koop called over his shoulder, "you found a fight and did't tell me!"

"So it would seem there are more who would dare challenge the forces of destruction," Nox said with what sounded like a laugh as ut walked out of the shadows, "though judging by the two I recognise part of the same group. No matter, without the error you cannot stand against our power for even a moment."

It held its hands together and another energy ball soon formed between them, this one thrice the size of the last. With a casual tossing motion, Nox sent the sphere hurdling towards the heroes faster than a mile a minute. Bowser snarled and swung his hammer, hitting the orb as though it were a baseball and his weapon a bat, the changed moment of the object caused it to fly into a small group of Ravenings and in a flash they were gone. Bowser rested the hammer on his shoulder, holding it with one hand as he flipped Nox off with the other.

"Insulent creautre!" Nox hissed, throwing a small barrage of energy orbs, all of which were deflected, "it is clear that your weapon and armor are from some higher power than yourself. I could bypass them entirely, but without the error here, I see no reason to use that much strength. Instead let us see how you fair without them!"

A flick of Nox's wrist send a dark color wave towards Bowser, which when it made contact tore apart his armor and wrenched his hammer from his hands, sending them all flying off into the distance as the koopa king's feet dug shallow ruts in the ground as he was pushed back in the powerful wind. He bent forward and put his arms infront of his face until the effect passed and he moved backwards no longer. As he straighted back up to his normal mino hunch and lowered his hands, a grin slowly came to his face.

"You know, I never really liked that stuff. I couldn't move right in the armor and the hammer was kinda fun but it was just too clunky for me. Now that you've got rid of them, though, I get to fight at my best. In other words,specifically words that I haven't said in a long while..." Bowser's smile widened even further as he cracked his knuckles, then roared out at the top of his lungs; "SHOW TIME!"

Nox's only response was to lift a finger towards Bowser, holding his hand like a gun. What looked like a lazer burst fired at the koopa, who leapt backwards before the impact. Then, as he jumped forwards again, Bowser somehow curled into an almost perfect ball, with shell and spikes in every direction. The now curled up Bowser rolled towards his opponent at alarming speed, and swerved as Nox fired more blasts from his extended finger. It wasn't long before Bowser uncurled and jumped at his opponent, fist raised. The stranger being suddenly moved its 'wings' and propelled itself backward several feet before the hit made contact, causing the turle-like fighter to create a small crator in the ground instead.

Bowser quickly pulled his fist out of the soil and turned towards his enemy, taking a deep breath before launching a volley of fireballs in a sort of spreadshot pattern. Nox did a motion that looked like rolling his eyes and threw out the palm of his hand, summoning what looked like a forcefeild. The fireballs collided with the wall of energy, harmlessly so but for the fact thateach inexplicably burst on impact and sent up a great cloud of smoke and dust between the combatants. Nox lowered his sheild and glared into the obscuring haze. Suddenly out of the billow of debris came a round object spinning so fast it could barely be seen. It smashed into Nox and sent it back aways, then crashed hard into the ground and stop sinning revealing it to be Bowser's shell, which his limbs promptly popped out from as he stood up and turned towards his opponent.

"Had enough yet, buddy?" Bowser asked, laughing hardily

"Of this tiresome battle, yes," Nox snarled back, regaining his balance, "now disapear!"

Nox swung his arm in Bowsers direction and all of the plants, rocks, Ravengings, and anything else between them and about ten feet around Bowser disintegrated into nothing. But Bowser stood still, an angry look on his face as he raised an eyebrow.

"First off, pal, Bowser doesn't take order. He gives them," the koopa snarled, stepping calmly towards a confused and scared looking Nox," which brings me to my second point; YOU DISAPEAR!"

With that Bowser swung his fist so hard the sheer force of it somehow carried his whole body and brought the punch sliding all the way into Nox's face. The victim as this mighty impact went flying into a small outcropping of rock. Nox climbed back out of the new hole in the rock before even half a minute had passed and looked at Bowser then snarled slightly.

"So there's another..." the strange being said as his appearance faded until he simply disapeared, though clearly on purpose and as means of escape.

"Huh. Well that was weird," Bowser commented, before shrugging and going back to the other Skylanders, "come on, I found the thing we were looking for."

* * *

 **That was pretty damn cool at the end there, and I hate myself for having to admit it.**

Yeah well, I was going to make this two seperate chapters but both of them felt short. Wonder if any of the readers see what I'm doing yet, though.

 **With the fights with nox or with the drobot and tweak stuff or something else?**

Yes. Really all I have to say at this point.

 **You sure, I feel like we're forgetting something.**

It's likely at this point. My memory is awful sometimes.

 **Sometimes?**

Do not be the pot that calls the kettle black right now.

 **Fair.**

Exactly.

Belak Out


	8. Secrets from the Past

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 8: Secrets from the Past

The group followed Bowser away from the battle ground, still somewhat in shock.

"I should probably tell you," Bowser muttered over his shoulder as he trudged along, "what I found isn't the same as the cave."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Stealth Elf asked.

"Look for yourself." The koopa king said with almost no emotion, gesturing slightly as he pulled away a small wall of plants, revealing a stone building. It wasn't exactly large, but there was something moderatly important seeming about it and it seemed built to last forever. There was a small set of stairs leading to the entrance. Bowser began to make his way up the stairs.

"Come on, the writing's inside," he said, gesturing for the others to follow, "and my camera and stuff went with the armor, so you guys better take the pictures."

The others climbed the steps and fenture inside. Sure enough, the familiar symbols were sprawled across the walls. Shake and Stealth quickly set to work getting images of the walls, while Bowser stood just outside the entrance, facing away from the building, not quite standing gaurd but more daring anything to try something. Wrecking Ball did his best to wait patiently, but quickly became bored and began to roll and bounce around the room, he managed not to disturb or interupt the others for a while, until he tripped and went careening into a wall. The other three turned towards the sound.

"You better not be crashing around on purpose, Wrecking Ball," Stealth Elf said, somewhat chastisingly, "this place is old enough that I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's highly fragile."

"If I did it on purpose I wouldn't have skidded on my face," the grubb responded with a somewhat sad look, "that said, owwww."

Stealth rolled here eyes and went to check him over and Rattle Shake shrugged and went back to taking pictures. But Bowser moved to and looked over the place Wrecking Ball had stumbled. There was a stone brick that had been placed just slightly higher than the rest, which were all somehow perfectally level, and Wreck's run in with it and nudged it further out of place.

The koopa king stared at the spot for a good moment, curious. He came from a world where the slightest abnormality could hide incredible secrets, this loose brick clearly had something off about it. He nodded to himself and gripped the loose stone the best he could and lifted up. Sure enough, slid out of the floor relatively easily. He shook it slightly to make sure it wasn't hollowed out before softly tossing it aside and turning his attention to the new hole in the floor. Inside he found a curious. It had a perfect circle carved on each side and was made of a strange material, like bronze but sturdier. A series of softly glowing symbols were neatly marked into it along the inner ring of the circle on each face.

" I found something over here," he called to the others gruffly, then all glanced towards him and noticed the cube.

"The others going to want to see this," Rattle Shake said, packing up what equipment he had out, "we should get back, con rapidez"

They left and made their way back as quickly as possible As soon as the group touched ground at the scrapyard island, Drobot came up to, he opened his mouth for a second then shook his head slightly before speaking.

"I assumed that due to your hurried reapearence, you were in some kind of danger otherwise worrisome situation, however you are clearly not damaged or harmed," Drobot said, "I shall optimistically assume that you at the least recovered the pertinent information you were entrusted to discover prior to your hasty return?"

"That and something more," Stealth Elf said, holding out the odd cube Drobot looked slightly at it then his jaw dropped, "also we ran in that Nox thing again, it seemed just as strong, if not more so."

"But I took it out no problem!" Bowser laughed heartily, "thing only knocked away my armor and I didn't like the stuff anyway!"

Drobot looked at the entire group, clearly having processed the second part but still being stuck on the cube, after a moment he shook his head and said "You would have my gratitude if you would allow me to take possession of this object and any other data you have collected on your mission so that Tweak and myself may suffieciently add the new information to our data pool and thus improve our collective theses."

"Yeah, sure," Stealth Elf said, pulling out her data device as well and handing both over, "figured you'd know what it was."

"Both the data, cube included, and what I will accept as a compliment are highly appreciated," Drobot answered hastily taking the objects, "I must now return to Tweak's laboratory to compile these new findings into out data collection."

With that, the cyborg dragon rushed off, not bothering with the mutterered comments his technologically enhanced senses alowed him to overhear. Within minutes he was back in the lab, where Tweak was going through some papers they two had written up.

"Tweak! The group that got sent out to recently found something," Drobot said, instantly breaking his facade of complicated speach, "they apparently ran into the Nox thing along the way too, but Bowser also seems to be immune to its powers."

"Damn, that means they got there just in time by my guess," his companion asked, genuinely intrigued "and what did they find, more runes?"

"True, that could have been bad had they gotten there a bit later. And while they did find more runes," Drobot nodded, handing over the data as he said so, then he gave Tweak the cube, "they also found this."

"Wholly shattered servos," Tweak gasped, recognising it on sight, "no way."

He brought it over to a computer console and set it onto a strange pedestal and presed several buttons, being sure to also download the image data from the odd temple at the same time. After a moment, images appear on a screen nearby.

"Wow," Tweak said, "now that is a lucky find."

"Invaluable," Drobot nodded slowly, "no wonder we couldn't find any the data I was after."

"That aside, though, That's two islands that prove your theory from organic experience; the Stair coil and the recent place, three if you count what used to be Skylanders HQ based on what you've shown me of the place," Tweak said, having pulled up images large screen with several images from the places mentioned all over it, then he looked at the smaller screen of a device on his wrist, "and the drones scouring the debris are all reporting signs that prove it positive too. Looks like you were right..."

"They're targeting islands with traces of this mysterious old civilization," Drobot said, with a grim tone, "now the only question is why."

"I'd say cause they're still pissed over the whole eternal imprisonment thing," Tweak shrugged, "makes sense enough."

"Not even eldritch abominations hold grudges like that," Drobot answered, "if it were that simple, they've made it clear that they could and would be wiping out much more than just the islands with the specific islands."

"Heh, always thinking further than me. Damned if you're not right, though, that's going to take some figuring out," Tweak agreed, "As is stopping the threat in the first place. That new thing is going to help though."

"Yeah, we haven't had a break like that since..." the dragon stopped, an idea suddenly occuring to him, "the book."

"What do you..." The lemur creature's eyes went wide as the same thought occured to him, "that author couldn't have..."

"He just might," Drobot answered, "only one way to find out."

«^»«^»«^»

 _There was fire everywhere. A long figure stood in the center of the inferno, not fully knowing where he was or how this had happened. He heard screams of pain in voices that he almost recognised and went to go towards the sound. But before he could make a measily few steps there was an explosion, engulfing the world around him in light and color and pain..._

Pop Fizz woke up with a silent scream. Every fiber of him ithced and stung at the same time and his skull was pounding. He told himeself repeatedly that it had just been a dream, but no matter how much he blinked and shook himself and restated the fact, he couldn't seem to stop the flashes going through his mind. Faces and voices that he didn't recognise, things he didn't know, and pain.

The pain was all that was familiar to him, and by now he knew a surefire way to stop it. He grabbed a bottle of soda and down it quickly, feeling the slightly tingling rush of the cafiene and other substances reaching his system. After a moment, the feeling drowned out the other sensations. His headache stopped, the flashes ceased, and the pain faded. He sighed in relief as he felt himself again, and downed another bottle. He belched loudly and laughed, already forgetting the dream.

* * *

 **...explain**

Which part?.

 **All of it.**

...no.

 **Why are you like this?!**

Because it's fun.

Belak Out


	9. Hope

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 9: Hope

It was night Tweak and Drobot hurriedly emerged from the workshop and ran to find Spyro and Tree Rex. Luckily, both were still awake; walking near the piles of scrap and conversing about strategy.

"Oh, hey guys," the purple dragon greeted once he saw them, "what's up?"

"We've figured something" Tweak said, hastily, "we figured out something really big."

"Stealth Elf, Rattle Shake, Bowser and Wrecking Ball recovered an Arkeyan lexicon," Drobot elaborated in his fake speach pattern, showing the cube, "they are data storage devices the ancient Arkeyns implented to prevent unwanted entities from finding the data from a typical archive; doing so by being a closed unit of data only accessable via the lexicon itself. This particular lexicon unit had data stored upon for the translation of the written dialect that has been discovered at the several locations across Skylands that the Arkeyans recorded, thusly implying that the Arkeyans intended to implement the ancient ruins in some manner but wanted their translastion to maintain secret."

"Something in the writings must have upset them," Tweak said, working off of Drobot, "but the lexicon itself wouldn't be much on its own of course, we needed something to translate, and we did, we went through all the stuff in the cave and the temple and some things we had drones find on other islands. Most of it was useless, restating what we knew or talking about the story of the location itself. But we also had another place where the symbols were."

"Can we get to the point already?" Treerex interupted, slightly annoyed.

"Right, right, sorry," Tweak stammered out, "we translated the book and well, you're going to want to hear this. Hold on a sec, we wrote it down."

Tweak brought out some sheets of paper, cleared his through and read the following aloud:

If you can read this, that means you have found the translator, just as I did long ago. In my travels, I have become beyond certain that it is the only thing capable of providing knowledge of this language, so I hid it away. If you found both it and this book, it either means you're far too curious for your own good, or that it's begun. If it hasn't truly started, and trust me, you will know if it has, for the good of all that exists, hide the book and the cube again, far from one another, purge your mind of the information you've gleaned from them, and hope luck and old magic hold out and they are both found again when needed.

Now then, if you have found these objects when that time has indeed come, then I am sorry you have to experience that fate. But do not despair, if all went as planned, there is still a chance to stop the forces of destruction before all is lost. The great beast is held in its prison by a great mechanism powered by energy and power that flow like rivers from incredible objects created in times of old. Even the building of this device choose only to call it "The Shackle of the Nemesis". Few have ever seen the Shackle, for it exists on an island below the clouds of Skylands, where what is left of the world Undone looms within sight, dead and menacing below. Upon this shadow of a land, directly below the Isle of the Shackle is the abyssal pit wich houses the best itself.

But that is all I know of the Shackle and its home, for the isle is protected, and none may set foot there. It is said There are fearsome gaurdians that tirelessly attack any and all that attempt to reach the Isle, and a mighty storm rages around the place with more fury than all storms to strike Sylands combined. Of course I only know this from legends, for a barrier as strong as the beast's prison itself shields even the defenses of the isle from view. And as long as that barrier stands, there is hope, because nothing can break through it.

...However, there is a way for the barrier to be disabled. I have discovered, in my years of research, that if all of the Shackle's energy sources are destroyed, the barrier will fall, and the forces of destruction will be able to attack the Shackle. However, if even one energy source remains, the barrier will remain active. What is more, the Shackle was made to be able to continue for milenia, even if the barrier falls. So Even if you fail to protect the energy sources, you still have a way to prevent the end, so long as you can prevent the forces that serve the creature from destroying the Shackle.

Though I should warn you, I may have been giving you false hope this entire time. For all that I have said is only possible if the creature cannot send ANY of its own power to do its bidding, for if it can, in all my years I have only found that there is nothing in Skylands or the world Undone that can resist it. even if the ancient Prime Elementals decended once more, lead by the being of creation, they would not succeed: The beast has stewed in its prison for aeons, and power like its only grows with the passing of time. If those who imprisoned the beast before returned, it would be too strong for them to hope to defeat. If it has unleashed any amount of its power to do its bidding, then I am truly sorry, for there is nothing I can do to help.

"Oh..." Tree Rex said silently, "well shit."

"Wait, wait, that end part's not right," Spyro said after he shook himself our of shock, "Nox obviously either is or has a piece of the beast's power, and Bowser and Pop have both gone toe to toe with him or it or whatever."

"With all required respect, that theory is erroneous," Drobot corrected, "based on compiled data on those two events, the creature refferring to itself as Nox was not only bewildered by both Pop Fizz and Bowser's collective abilites to resist its power, but also was heard to refer to them both as 'errors'. It is clear that some aspect of both Pop Fizz and Bowser, and aspect that was unforseen by the book's author, by the creatures serving under the mysterious creature of destruction, and even likely by the so reffered Prime Elementals, that immunifies the both of them from the powers that the destruction based creatures possess."

"So what's this link?" Tree Rex asked, "we need to figure out who all has it so that we can have them beat the shit of out Nox before they win."

The two geniuses glanced at one another, then almost in unison looked sheepishly at the ground.

"We're, eh, working on that," Tweak answered weakly, "gonna need some tests

"To clarify, there does not seem to exist a characteristic that was shared between the two of them," Drobot elaborated, "at least not a characteristic that other beings who were effected did not also share."

"...and we're back to 'well shit'," Tree Rex sighed, "any actual good news?"

"Yes, two things actualy," Tweak said, perking back up, "the first being that after looking at debris from several islands hit by skyquakes, which by the way have all been islands containing traces of the ancients or whatever they're called, Nox and the ravegleing have absolutely no fucking idea where the energy sources for the Shackle are. The other good news, is that we, however, do."

"While that's great and all, it doesn't actually help us," Spyro said, "we can't exactly expect two Skylanders to hold who knows how many islands forever, and we kinda need to have our only fighters against this enemy on call."

"'So long as one energy source remains, the barrier will stay active'," Tweak retorted, somewhat snarkily, "send Bowser or Pop Fizz to one of the places with enough provisions to last until we figure stuff out, and maybe one or two other Skylanders for patching whichever of the two up between fights with Nox and in case something other than destruction creatures pops up. I'd suggest more, but a small team won't draw attention and has less chance of somebody getting badly messed up if Nox does show up. We'd only need a DNA sample of whichever we send so we can run comparison tests."

"What if they just skyquake the place and be done with it?" Tree Rex scoffed gruffly, "that plan won't be much good if that happens."

"We've actually been looking into that," Tweak answered, still somewhat defiently, "we've found reason to believe Nox actually needs to be on the island for a skyquake to happen: it's him exerting his power. From what we've seen, takes him a while to activate a skyquake. And if he gets his ass kicked before he can do that, he'll run away like before."

"And furthermore, we have deduced that the creature Nox either cannot or does not return to a location from which it has retreated for quite some time," Drobot said, unsurprisingly building off of what Tweak had said, "many that whomever we send will not be under constant siege. What is more, the creatures serving under the powrrs of destruction do not know what, let alone where, the energy sources exist. After some study, we have reason to believe that the so called ravelings are used as scouts and if any trace of the civilization of the Prime Elementals exists upon the island, the creature Nox arrives to initiate a skyquake. This would mean that the creatures do not bother to attempt to decipher whether or not whatever trace of the civilization is indeed an energy soruce of the Shackle. If the ravegelings are prevented from discovering wether or not traces of the Prime civilization exist on an island, there is a chance they may be discouraged entirely from attacking the same island again."

"You guys sure have thought a lot through in a little amount of time," Spyro admitted, "you're positive about all this?"

"We have the two highest IQs in Skylands and we've triple checked everything, we're sure," Tweak nodded, grinning, "we've even figured out the best place to have one of the two protect. Only thing left to do is decided who to send."

"I'll go," called Pop Fizz's unmistakable voice as he leapt down from a ways up the pils the four had been standing near.

"Pop, I'm glad you're volounteering," Spyro said with a nod, "but how long have you been listening?"

"The whole time," Pop Fizz admitted with a shameless grin, "pretty intense stuff."

"Right," Spyro sighed, rolling his eyes, "well, who do you want to take with?"

"I was thinking on going by myself," he admitted, "I was pretty good at getting along on my own back before I joined the Skylanders (I think), and I know all sorts of medicine recipes. Gimme enough food and stuff to last, and I'll be good; I've even got enough soda ready for about a year or so."

"You sure you want to handle it alone, Pop?" Spyro asked, gently, sensing something off about the gremlin, "even if you don't need the help, it'd be nice to have somebody else around, wouldn't it?"

Pop Fizz stopped for a moment, as if considering. Amidst his thoughts, he suddenly gave an odd, thousand yard stare sort of look, one of his eyes twitching slightly. Then he shook his head and brought out a bottle of soda, taking a long swig.

"Nah, I'll be fine," the purple creature grinned madly, as if the previous moment had never happened, "I'll take a video game or something with for when I get bored."

The other four beings all glanced at eachother for a long moment before accepting that Pop Fizz was probably just having one of his jittery fits or something.

"Fine, you can head out as soon as we get the supplies together," Spyro said with a nod, then, turning to Tweak, "how long will it take to get things together?"

"Already got bots working on it," Tweak said, "and I've always got a few fast modes transports on standby. It'll all be ready before sunrise. Me and Dro'll get the auto pilot set up, I uh, don't exactly trust mister Fizz's skills as a pilot."

"That's fair," Pop Fizz responded with a careleess shrug, "I'll get my stuff packed up and see you guys in a bit."

As the five beings split up a silent figure moved just a bit more out of sight. They had caught every word of the conversation, and they had greatly dislike a good portion of what they had heard. They moved from their hiding spot into the shadows of the night.

* * *

 **...have I gone more insane or did you just make two chapters within four days of eachother.**

I wrote to a part that I'd had planned for a long time, and now have a lot of ideas and inspiration, so yes, I did make two chapters within four days. Might even make more this week if I don't get too caught up in life.

 **You and I both know that you don't have a life.**

Shut up.

 **No.**

Fuck you.

 **...well then. That was unexpected**

I've been feeling...unpredictable. Either way, I hope people are prepared for a wild ride with this story and my others.

Belak Out.


	10. Rematch

Skylanders: Age of Ruin

Chapter 10: Rematch

The sun was only just begining to rise when things were all squared away; a few months of basic provions was packed up on a mid sized shipe along with several things Pop Fizz insisted on bringing along, mostly alchemey and soda making equipment and ingredients. Tweak and Drobot took thier DNA sample in the form of a few ounces of blood and the gremlin was off.

«^»«^»«^»

"We should have this sorted out in a few days," Drobot said as the put the samples into a device, "if that much."

The computer made a few noises and several series of numbers and data appeared on screen aside several images of analisys on cells, DNA, and molecules from both samples.

"This might take a while even for us," Tweak sighed, "they could share several thousands of extremely minor similarities, any one of which could be th-"

"There's definatly something legitamatly...off, about both of them..." Drobot cut Tweak off, "I can't put my finger on it, though..."

"...Right, quantum processing or whatever. forgot. I'll run through it myself in a bit." Tweak said approvingly, "But for now, if you've gone through it all and can't figure it out, maybe we need to start trying to find how they differ from typical beings."

"Already sending sampling drones, we'll get some local samples ourselves" Drobot nodded, "we'll get this figured out sooner than I thought."

«^»«^»«^»

After a few hours of flying, Pop Fizz found himself on a lightly forested island more with a large hill or perhaps a small mountain dominating one side. He scanned the slope as the auto pilot more or less disengaged, the craft hovering in air. Surprising to just about everyone, including himself, Pop Fizz had had almost expert levels of skill in flying the small ship, and as such had been trusted to land it himself. Pop Fizz took the controls as he spotted what he wanted: a moderate cave that gave a view of most of the island but was difficult to see from below.

The gremlin manuvered the plane near to mouth of the cave, landing on the slope nearby and getting out to see if the vehicle itself would fit inside or if he had to hide it elsewhere. He went inside, no light in hand; he had had darksight better than most animals for several years and could see clear to the back of the cave. It was not nessecarily large, less than a hundred yards deep and ten across at its widest. which was good: there was no need to worry about nasties crawling out of the unknown depths of an overly large cave. He knew this was large enough to house the plane and make a comfortable campsite if he kept the plane at the back.

After double checking to ensure there were no side tunnels, he made his way back to the plane to put it inside. But, while he had been inside, a silent figure had came from their hiding place in the storage compartment and crept to a new hiding place, watching Pop Fizz unseen from the moment he exited the cave. As the gremlin was climbing back into the controls of the plane, his ears twitched oddly and he sniffed the air, suddenly tensing.

"I know you're there," he snarled, "stop hiding."

The being wordlessly stepped out of their hiding spot, still behind Pop. They made a noise like they intended to speak, but Pop Fizz cut them off.

"You're pretty good, for a bit there I thought you were just some local animal or something. But animals don't wear shoes and armor, and you left a scent of the cargo door when you got out," the gremlin said calmly without turning around, "so, why did you stowaway and follow me here, Chill?"

"I want to make sure you did not fuck things up," the frigid being scoffed, "I can't believe they'd trust something like this somebody like you."

"Wasn't exactly much choice," Pop Fizz snarled back, "and I ain't flying you back so unless you have a ride planned, you're gonna be stuck here till I leave. So I would suggest you keep your distance or something unless you want me to flip out."

"I'm not afraid of you, or anything you can do," she snarked back, "but I don't want to deal with your awful stench, so I can agree to staying away."

"Whatever, just get out of the way," the gremlin sighed, "I need to put the plane in the cave."

By the time had the shuttle tucked in the furthest back of the cave and had Pop had set up what alchemey equipment he had been able to get together, the sun was already setting. Without a word to Chill, Pop Fizz went to the mouth of the cave, sitting down just inside the entrance, leaning against a large stone. His rabbit like ears swiveled and twitched slightly and his eyes scanned the island while he sniffed the night air. He nodded slightly once he was certain the island had no threats for that night and allowed himself to doze.

...

 _Boom. The sound pounded alongside a flash that burned a fierce blindness into his eyes. A scream of pain burst through the air, and the sound cut him deep._

 _..._

Pop Fizz woke back up with a start, his heart pounding. He pulled out a bottle of soda and took a long swig, sighing slightly. A few hours had clearly past, he could make it through the rest of the night without sleep. His ears twitched at a sound but he shrugged it off and went back to watching and listening to the island. He kept himself awake by focusing on noticing every sight and sound.

«^»«^»«^»

Meanwhile Tweak was pounding his head against a table in exasperation while Drobot ran through countless lines of data.

"Why the hell can't anything be easy?" he sighed.

"I told you we wouldn't be able to figure it out," Drobot said, not looking away from the screen, "not without testing the way I suggested..."

"You know that idea scares me," Tweak answered exasperated, "it could end catastrophically if not done exactly right."

"So we do it right," Drobot commented, "we need to make progress on this."

"Fine, you're right," the lemur being admitted, "but we'll need samples, and a way to contain the process."

"I've already got idea for handling the second part," the dragon answered, "the problem will be the sample. I get the feeling that the lesser things don't have the same power as the big one. Which means even capturing one alive wouldn't give us what we need, even if it weren't so inadvisable, and getting the big one's going to be an even worse idea.."

"So we need a way to get some of the big one's energy," Tweak said, suddenly straightening up, as ideas of his own came to him "probably not directly from the source either, too strong a take and too dangerous to get. So we need a way to harvest the power from one of his attacks. Should be doable."

"Ah the wonderful magic of Skylands," Drobot chuckled, "well, let's get to work."

The sun had risen, set, and was rising again when the two geniouses presented their idea to Spyro.

"So you're telling me we need to pick a fight with those things again," Spyro sighed, "while it's clear we can, is this really the best idea?"

"It seems to be the only option," Tweak answered, "so while it may not be the wisest plan, we don't have a choice."

"We were able to produce this device using a series of alloys and processes we meitculously constructed, " Drobot put in after coughing a little, holding up what looked like a medieval sheild with a strange canister on the one side "in theory, it shall withstand and absorb the abilities of the creature Nox well enough to serve our purposes nicely. However, we are not one hundred percent certain, and due to both that factor and the nature of the process, it would be ill advised to attempt this procedure on a living entitiy, If it is indeed capable of doing so, then it shall be more also able to obtain our required sample, which should enable us to find any other beings who can resist the creature Nox's powers."

"And after we finally find that out," Tweak picked up from where Drobot left off almost instantly, "we'll have more fighters against the things. If we're lucky, it might help us find out why they're immune."

"Okay, it is really interesting how in sync you guys are," Spyro responded, taking the sheild device, "but yeah, fine, we'll send a team. Bowser's always up for a fight anyway. He's like a damned drunken Irishmen..."

Spyro found the koopa king doing his best to fulfill more of that analogy, drinking heavily but seeming perfectally sober.

"I would be an immense help if you'd do this for us," Spyro concluded after telling Bowser the rest.

"While I'm not the happiest about having to tote around gear again, You had me when you told me I could fight that thing again," Bowser said as he took a large swig of booze, "but I get to pick my team this time. I ain't going with any stuck up sticks in the mud again."

"...fine, fine, whatever," Spyro sighed, "who do you want?"

"Oh, I think you already know," Bowser laughed hardily and downed the rest of his flagon, "don't worry, though, we'll get the job done."

«^»«^»«^»

"So, who's ass are we kicking, ya big tortoise?" Wolfgang grinned to Bowser, as they, along with Swarm and Rollerbrawl sped along in a small but fast ship, pilotted by a robot, "and when do we break out the drinks?"

"Calls itself Nox, and I can kick its ass, but you all need to be careful, which means no drinking," Bowser said, than laughed, "at least until after we're done. Now ready up, we're almost there."

The others nodded and lept off the ship along side the koopa before it had fully landed at a rather barren archipelego, small enough to count as one island. Bowser adjusted the sheild device on his arm as his eyes immediatly snapped to several groups of raveglings, strewn across the islands.

"Alright, friends, Count your kills," Bowser smiled as he pointed out their enemy, "you know the point system and the prize for the winner. Oh, And since I'm the only one who can hurt the boss one, none of you even think about about taking those ten points from me."

Almost before he had finished saying it, his small team charged off in different direction. He laughed heartily, finally able to enjoy himself. Then he leapt high into the air and came down crushing a creature or two beneath his feet. As he stood up and lunged into a flying drop kick towards more of them, and as the creatures used their strange movements to evade the attack, the turtle's hands lunged out and grabbed the would be dodgers. As he landed back on his feet, he brought his hands together in an earthshattering collision, the beasts in his clutches essentially melting from the impact. He glared at the remaining number and inhaled deeply before unleashing a wave of fire, sending the beasts scurrying back and reducing the slower among them to ash. Bowser stood amongst the inferno laughing heartily.

"Come on, creeps, I want a challenge," he taunted to the creatures, eyes aflame, "call for mama to come save you already, you babies!"

The turtle felt a chill and grinned, turning on a dime and taking the coming wave with the gadget on his arm and cussing under his breath as he noticed the small amount the fill gauge moved. He lowered the peice of metal and grinned.

"Well, that was fast," Bowser chuckled, "I'd say 'speak of the devil' and all that, but of the two of us I think I'm closer to that."

"I am surprised to see you again, even the other error seems to have had some self preservation instinct," Nox hissed in its unusual voice, "you however seem to merely be a fool. Know that I shall not be humilated a third time."

Bowser laughed and cracked his knuckles, one eye darting to the side for half a second as he saw raveglings begin to form a ring around the two. Past the circle seemed to be a black sea of the beasts, interrupted only in small areas but the team Bowser had brought with, and more seemed to writher up from nothing every moment. He figured he should try to wrap this up quickly.

"I hope that means you're ready for a one on one rematch," The koopa king snarled, not for a second showing any emotion besides readiness for a fight, "cause this table scraps would get chewed up by me."

"I agree, I have felt your strength first hand and must admit it is impressive. For a living being as yourself, at least," Nox said, getting into a martial arts esque combat stance, "now then, shall we begin?"

"Ha, that's what I like to hear from my foes," Bowser smiled, readying himself as well, "Show Time."

Without another word the turtle being roared out a burst of flame and lunged through the ball of fire, come out the other side ablaze from head to foot, like living magma, rushing forward at top speed. Nox responded almost immediatly with a blast of airless wind, a wave of vacuum washed towards Bowser. The koopa manuevered the device to catch as much of the attack as could be done, but it was uneeded; even without doing so the flames enveloping his body only seemed to burn bright as his rage grew.

Nox made a perturped but unsurprised noise and gracefully leapt over Bowser to the other side of the arena made of ravegelings. The destruction entity's opponent pushed his legs out and bent back, turning his charge into a back flip that sent him hurdling toward Nox's new position, flaming spiked shell first. The initial impact came before Nox could fully react, but the strange creature exerted its power as strength and tossed Bowser away before the latter could crush the former against the ground. Bowser tucked into his shell, spinning wild through the air before quite suddenly landing on his feet as his flames went out.

He grinned at his quarry and moved his hand in a 'bring it' gesture. Nox seemed to chuckle for a momet as several spheres of dark matter like energy formed around him, then he lazily pointed toward the koopa and the spheres launched in a machine gun like barrage, replinishing almost faster than they fired. Bowser raised the device on his arm and blocked the hits, glowering slightly at the fill meter on it as he slid back ever so slightly under the onslaught. The rapid fire assault was filling the gadget a good ways, but it wasn't doing so fast enough for Bowser's liking. Without a second though he fired a volley of his own into the air, the fireballs moving in an arc and landing all nearly upon Nox, forcing the creature to stop its onslaught and doge out of the way.

"Your little balls weren't nothing the first time, you really think they were gonna do anything this time?" Bowser mocked his foe, "show me what you can really do!"

"I was attempting to make it a fair fight," Nox hissed with muffled fury, "but if you are so eager to become sustenence for my master, so be it."

With that, Nox spread his arms wide and lifted himself into the air with his wings of vapor. He inhaled sharply and seemed to steal reality from itself; everything in the vacinity apart from Bowser and himself suddenly drained of all color and grinded to a halt in time. Emptyness seemed to arc off him like lightning as he raised a hand towards Bowser. Withing a moment, a colorless beam of pure void shot towards the other. The koopa held up the sheild and struggled against the force of the blast.

"The power of destruction, to turn existence into nothingness!" Nox snarled, its voice suddenly echoing from all over, "is this enough for you?!"

"Juuuust about," Bowser grinning as he noticed the fill gauge max out. He lowered the sheild and the body encasing, molten esque flames of before reigniting brighter than ever. The fire was so intense it seemed to burn away the nothingness of the beam as one came into contact with the other. The koopa king then lunged up towards Nox, the attack receding before him like a dropping tide. Upon reaching his quarry, Bowser grabbed Nox in a viscious bear hug and went into a moment spin before bringing them both to the ground in a flaming body slam.

The instant Nox hit the dirt beneath the weight of the turtle beast, color and time restored to everything. And all around, the ravegelings stared for half a second before turning and scurrying away to throw themselves off sides of the islands. As Bowser stood up, Nox woundedly pushed himself away.

"What...what ARE you?" The mysterious creature half hissed half whimpered

"The name's Bowser," the turtle laughed, raising a fist, "and I'm the fucking KOOPA KING!"

He brought his hand down in a mighty punch, but instants before it connected, Nox vanished into thin air. Bowser cussed and his fist sunk into the ground, but then pulled it out laughing.

"Well, looks like we got what we came for!" He chuckled, turning to his friends who looked at him confused as he tapping the sheild device on his arm, "and I get the feeling that ending means I won. So, who wants to buy my first ten pints?

* * *

Hey, look at that! I'm still writing stuff.

 **Yeah. Took you fucking long enough...wait...haven't you already used That begining?**

What? No, this Chapter 10

 **but you already posted chatper ten.**

I have not. I've no idea what you're talking about.

 **But-**

And even if I did know what you were blathering about, I would say that any past variations of chapter ten were lazily written and under time constraints and were therefor flawed anyway.

 **Ohhhh, I get what's going on now. I'll shut up.**

Good. Because this is the only Chapter 10 of this story that there is.

Belak Out.


End file.
